St. Louis Weight Loss Surgery Health Benefits – Van L. Wagner MD
The reason surgeons got involved in weight loss surgery is simply because there are so many medical problems related to obesity and there is simply a huge list of medical problems and the role of weight loss surgery is to improve the health of the individual. This is not a cosmetic procedure. We want to improve a person’s health and we would hope that those medical problems would improve or completely go away after surgery, and that is exactly what happens after weight loss surgery. For example, high blood pressure is certainly one of the more common medical problems. Approximately, 68% of people who have high blood pressure will have significant improvement or complete resolution after surgery and another medical problem, obstructive sleep apnea. Now, impressively about 80% of people who have sleep apnea, they will be able to get off through CPAP machines after weight loss surgery and probably the most important finding of all is with people who have diabetes mellitus. Now, diabetes is truly one of the worst chronic medical problems that anyone can develop. As years go by, diabetes affects, damages, and destroys every system in the body and when you think about a diabetic, there is really no medical treatment for diabetes. What does a diabetic do? They take medication and they control their blood sugar. Now, the only thing that has been shown that can actually reverse diabetes in the obese population happens to be weight loss surgery and studies show that about 84% of diabetics will have complete resolution after weight loss surgery and that is an astounding number. So, again there are many medical problems related to obesity and the role is to improve or allow those medical problems to completely go away after surgery.